Interests

Oh god...
Real talk - I've been kind of apprehensive about this one. The original plan was just to do a thread on the original Persona, and then I warmed to the idea of covering both Persona 2 games, but this one may end up being the least accessible. You see, the two earlier games both had modern reworks on PSP that were localised for Europe. To my knowledge, EP never got that treatment... there was a PSP release for Japan, and an English-language release for North America on the PS1, but that's about it. Soooo there might be some old-fashioned clunkiness to get around!
As you might realise given my earlier LP threads, this game has now become one of the few remaining games in the series where I'm completely in the dark. I think I did a "curiosity emulation" thing months ago but didn't make it more than about 15-20 minutes in because the dated presentation hit me like a truck and I was scared to go on. I have set up the necessary stuff to get this playing well (although my "turbo-mode through the battles" tendencies may be limited here), and although there are probably fan-tran versions of the PSP game I'll be sticking with the PS1 version for the time being.
The same caveats as before apply - I'll be emulating for screenshot purposes, and discussion is welcome and encouraged, and people can play along, but keep spoiler etiquette in mind. I have no idea how this one's going to go, but I'll try and share the opening moments later on this evening...
If you missed my LP threads on the previous games, take a look at them here:

NOTE: Please see the below thread for dedicated discussion of Persona 5 Scramble; hopefully my thread can be the home of vanilla and Royal chat!
UPDATED OP:
It looks like a new Persona 5 game is coming to Playstation following the announcement of Persona 5: The Royal - this was revealed in March 2019, following a previous tease that some P5 information would be revealed in that month, as well as news of some kind of Persona presence/announcement at Sega Fes 2019. The debut teaser below showed a new girl expressing dislike (or distrust?) of the Phantom Thieves, but little else. In late April a more substantial trailer was revealed (the second video below), showing off new locations, characters, events and more. This backs up the previous predictions of it being a "deluxe" version of P5, similar to P3: FES or P4 Golden.
http://www.atlus.com/persona5/
If you're wondering what a Persona is, I've provided a little primer below:

https://www.vg247.com/2017/08/02/all-the-persona-news-from-todays-livestream-persona-5-dancing-star-night-persona-3-dancing-moon-night-persona-q2/
Okay, there was no way they could ever match the hype of the P5 reveal stream (which teased Ultimax, Q, Dancing and P5) but this is good news for fans of those series. Me, I don't own a 3DS (or care about EO gameplay) and I still haven't played P4D, but they seem like perfect sequel and spin-off fodder. (I would have loved a new Arena though, grumble grumble...)
P3 Dancing trailer:
P5 Dancing trailer:
PQ2 teaser site

I guess this is happening?
Firstly, a huge thanks to anyone who dropped into my Persona 1 Let's Play thread around June-August of last year; I wasn't planning on doing a follow-up at first, but as it's the new year I'd like to attempt at least one of the two P2 games. Persona 2: Innocent Sin was first made available in Europe back in 2011, and the second game - Persona 2: Eternal Punishment - exists on PS1 somewhere, maybe only in the States? Anyway, I'd like to take things one step at a time and look at Innocent Sin for now.
Whilst I made a spirited effort with P1 back in the day, I don't know if I got more than 15 minutes into Innocent Sin, so a lot of this will be new to me. In preparation for this thread I did go a little bit further, so I at least know about things like the new Rumour system (which I'll explain when I get there), but the majority of this will still be very new. The same caveats as before will apply - I'll be playing on the lower difficulty due to my inexperience, I'll be using the PPSSPP emulator for screenshot purposes, and I invite others to play along but keep spoiler etiquette in mind.
Bonus caveats this time around will include me taking my time getting my head around the Rumour system, and choosing to do this thread in a year that promises a whole bunch of fun new 2019 videogame releases. I can't say my time won't be divided between new and old games, but I think it'll work out fine. Oh, and I'll try and introduce the opening of the game later today as well, so stay tuned.

We do it!
I've had this game in a library of an old PSP account for what must be years, and as a big fan of the later games I was always disappointed at the fact that I bounced off it so hard. For those who don't know, the Persona series is a bunch of popular JRPG games that follow a group of demon-summoning high-schoolers who go dungeon-crawling and uncover some big adventure or mystery. The 1996 game was already obscure enough, but Europe never really got their hands on it before the PSP release in 2010, so gamers over here can hardly be blamed for having P3 or 4 as their introduction to the series.
As a fan of 3 and 4 I was keen on taking a look at the origins of the series, and so I bought the PSP release digitally. Unfortunately, the first game is very different to how we view Persona today. With grid-based first-person dungeon exploration, a grid-based battle system where character positioning plays a part in tactics and negotiation that's much more in-depth than it was in 5… one would be forgiven for feeling a little overwhelmed. I tried pretty hard to get into it on PSP but with so much to consider it can be a slog to say the least.
Making this thread should – in theory – motivate me into trying again and not give up partway through. However, I'll outline a few caveats about how I'd like this thread to go. Firstly: I'd like to play on the lower difficulty because I have barely any experience with this game. For what it's worth, I played P3 and 4 on Easy for the first attempts and today I use Normal mode in those games, so forgive this wussing out. If all goes well I might even use this thread for a Normal mode re-run in the distant future! Secondly: I'd encourage anyone else who wants to join in to do so, but keep spoiler etiquette in mind. Perhaps I'll miss bonus optional stuff, but that's all part of the first experience.
One other caveat – for screenshot purposes, I'll be using the PPSSPP emulator. Like I said, I have bought the PSP digital release before, but this will be much more convenient for screenshotting. And of course, if this thread sees no action for months, you're welcome to mock me on Twitter or in PMs and motivate me into coming back!
UPDATE: I also played P2: Innocent Sin and made a thread - click here!

With the Euro release landing this week (Wednesday for SEN/PSN and Friday for brick-and-mortar retailers) I thought that it might be a good idea to get a thread started in preparation for Persona 4 Golden's release. Oh, and Yasawas and Dandy_Sephy expressed interest in seeing a dedicated thread. Released in 2009 on the PS2, Persona 4 arrived very late on Sony's last-gen console, but it's remained one of the most charming and rewarding JRPGs out there and is one of my all-time favourite games. It's a story that revolves around a group of high-school students in Inaba who stumble across an alternate world inside televisions where dangerous creatures known as Shadows roam. A friendly character within this world tells the students that someone has been kidnapping people and throwing them into TVs, and this provides the setup for most of the rest of the game, as the students set about exploring the TV world in order to rescue people trapped there and perhaps get more clues about the kidnapper and (ultimately) the nature of the TV world.
The beauty about the Persona games – at least, the later ones – is that they are really several games rolled into one. Exploring the TV world forms the core dungeon grind, but the heroes are still only students, and get up to student-y things such as studying for exams, answering quick quizzes in class, hanging out with friends in a sort of dating-sim lite (without all the creepiness), working part-time jobs that help to boost stats and earn money, fishing for things at the river, accepting occasional sidequests from people in Inaba and more besides. Whilst you get to explore various different dungeons in the TV world, Inaba's available locations largely stay the same, and so variety comes from the in-game calendar. On each new day there may be different people in town that you can spend time with, different jobs available, books being released in the bookstore which you can buy and read at home to boost stats, and more besides. The calendar also serves as motivation to rescue people from the TV world before it's too late.
Once you finish your school day and are free to explore the town, you have the option of entering the TV world through a large flatscreen in a local department store, which is the only way to enter dungeons and battle through them to save victims. The dungeon design is perhaps one of my favourite things about later Persona games, since each one is made up of several "floors", with the dungeon getting progressively harder from floor to floor, culminating in a boss battle on the final floor. It gives players a nice way of knowing if they're out of their depth and need to step back a few floors before progressing. Battles aren't random but are triggered in a stealth-lite format; if a Shadow spots you a "!" will appear above them and they'll give chase; if they strike you they will gain a free turn at the start of the battle; however, if you strike them without them noticing, your party gets the opening strike. The battles require you to take advantage of elemental strengths and weaknesses; the eponymous Persona that the students eventually gain are demons that can be summoned in battle and offer a selection of skills; buffs, nerfs, physical and elemental attacks, healing, etc. However, each persona can also be strong and weak against certain elements. If an elemental weakness is exposed on either a player or an enemy, a free turn is granted to whoever exposed the weakness. Therefore, a player who knows certain weaknesses in advance can exploit them one after the other with successive turns, knocking down enemies and potentially earning the chance to do a powerful "all-out attack" if all enemies are downed.
In having such a satisfying combat system, giving the player plenty to do outside of the dungeon, and designing each dungeon to get progressively more challenging as the player escalates, it nearly always feels rewarding to play. There are a few difficulty spikes with certain bosses, but things only really get hard if you deliberately rush through dungeons and avoid encounters. Reading back through what I've written it sounds a bit like a review but I really just wanted to provide a primer for people who are new to Persona and want to know what all the fuss is about. If anyone wants to add anything I've missed, feel free. I should just stress that there may be some details I've missed and there may still be bits that will be confusing to newcomers when they get their hands on the game, so I hope that we can get some good discussion going between new and experienced players. I was impatient and ended up importing the US version (and I know others did as well) but if enough people are getting into this for the first time I'll probably start a new game with you all.
PS EU Blog: A beginner's guide to Persona 4